I hope he’s right. I want him to be right. Even just watching from here, I feel free.

Next year I will watch from the Village.

Next year I will march.

Next year I will give myself permission.

Next year I won’t only feel free.

Next year I will be free.

When I was little, I used to watch The Wizard of Oz every year with my grandmother.

Connor could never sit still that long, but I looked forward to rooting Dorothy on as she tried to get home.

My favorite part was when she arrived in Oz and the movie switched from black-and-white to color.

I used to wonder how Dorothy felt, having her life changed from monochrome to Technicolor so quickly.

Now, I think I know.

It’s the last day of school.

I poke my head into the fear room to find one last post. Someone has written, Love Is… just like the cartoon in the newspaper. But under that is a list in different writing and pen colors, different people filling in the blank.

Love is…

…all you need

…a battlefield

…Hell

…in the air

…evol spelled backward

…for losers

…the drug

…all around

…all we have left

And I wonder if the answer really matters.

And if that last one is true.

And if it is, if love is even enough.

Becky usually hangs out in the newspaper office at lunch, but they’re done for the year, so we sit outside, picking apart some tuna sandwiches.

You’ve been quiet, she says.

I know, I say. I’m not sure how to talk about it.

Is it your dad? she asks.

Not more than usual.

Instead of playing twenty questions like she usually would, she waits and eventually I start talking about how I felt like a different person at Pride. Like the person I always wanted to be was waiting for a chance to come out, like a genie in a bottle or something.

But isn’t that good? she asks.

I know she doesn’t get it. Why would she?

Of course it is, I try to explain, But it also sucks because I don’t get to be that person in real life and I don’t want to go back to pretending. And what I tell her is so fucking true that I start to cry.

I tell her that Nonna, my mom’s mom, used to say tears were the language of God.

And I tell her about how my dad always replied that Nonna was going to make sissies of me and Connor. She told us to stand up to him, but we didn’t. We learned to bite our lips and hold our breaths, anything not to cry.

But my dad isn’t here, and when Becky wordlessly holds out a Kleenex, I let the tears flow.

Things to do:

• Finish the paper

• Write a paragraph on the meaning of the book

• Show the timeline of the development of the war

• Run a mile and do pull-ups for the Presidential Fitness Program